The Viral Ad Campaign Run By Animals

If you've been in city center lately, you might have seen one of the Go Vegan campaign posters

outside your favorite shops, or even at your bus stop.

Signs that say things like, "Eggs - what price does he pay?" and there are even stronger messages.

Thought provoking adverts are going to be appearing on Birmingham taxis, on the Warsaw digital billboard,

on the M6, on video screens at New Street.

I've got John Connors on the line, he's president of Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association

John, what do you make of these ads, these posters and the message that they're portraying?

Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to another vegan nugget. There’s no shortage

of animals in advertising, with many-specied
mascots hawking all manner of products, up

to and including their own flesh and secretions.

Catering perfectly to the inherent dichotomy
of animal lovers who eat animals, meat, dairy

and egg industry ads are rife with smiling
animals all too happy to be eaten, or comically

encouraging the consumption of others. This
rather perverse yet extremely pervasive concept

is something I explored in depth in this video,
Do Animals Want To Be Eaten?

But what if the animals we eat actually ran
their own ad campaign and replaced the billboards

emblazoned with their severed body parts and
secretions with distinct individuals. What

would they say to us? What would they ask
of us? And how would it change our behavior

and attitudes towards them?

This is the very premise of Go Vegan World,
the largest and longest-running vegan public

advertising campaign spanning several countries
and reaching hundreds of millions of people.

At the heart of this incredibly effective
international endeavor is Sandra Higgins,

a vegan psychologist, educator, activist,
and the founder and director of Eden Farmed

Animal Sanctuary, the first of its kind in
Ireland.

In addition to caring for Eden’s 120 or
so residents, Sandra delivers speeches all

over the world and provides vegan mentorship
and classes through Matilda’s Promise, a

vegan education center named after one of
Eden’s first residents. Please see the blog

post for this video linked in the description
to learn more about Matilda’s story.

Without further ado, let’s hear from Sandra
herself about the genesis of Go Vegan World

from the roots of Eden:

I realized for every individual that lives
at Eden, this is the most important thing

that we can offer them: a home. But in terms
of the changes we need in the world—in the

way that we relate to other species, other
animals—that’s not enough. We need vegan

education.

So Go Vegan World, really, was born out of
a period of darkness for me, where I felt

very frustrated. I was running the Vegan Education
center and I was doing individual vegan mentoring,

but most of the people attending, were attending
online from outside Ireland. The speaking

invitations I was getting were coming from
outside Ireland.

So I was in this dark place that many activists
would be familiar with: lying awake at night,

feeling frustrated, seeing the results at
the cold face of animal activism, seeing the

victims coming here and feeling stymied and
feeling like my mouth had been zipped shut

and there was nothing I could do to get that
message out to the world.

The idea was inspired by the idea of people
that had run bus advertising in the United

States and in Canada, and I decided to do
that here in Ireland. So I did that for about

4 months and it was extremely successful,
and it was so successful that we decided to

make it an International campaign.

And the strength of Go Vegan World, is that
the animals, for the first time ever, are

on the streets—real individuals—many of
them who live at Eden—lives and died—I

mean some of them have died while the campaign
is on the streets.

For instance we had Diana, who was in the
first campaign: They Trust Us - We Betray

Them, and then some of her photographs were
in the second campaign, and as the campaign

progressed, I got a phone call to say that
she had gone blind, and within 4 weeks she

had died. They live and die here, and the
very least we can do is let them tell their

own stories.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2bmdyte26imnfk/Newcastle%20Station%20Diana.jpg?dl=0

We used to think here in the beginning of
Eden that we were rescuing them. No, they

are rescuing us from our ignorance and I am
still ignorant—every single day I learn

something new about them and about what we’re
doing to them.

That’s the strength of what’s coming from
Eden and that’s why I feel that the work

I do here is not mine, it’s their work.

Some of the very strong ways in which Eden
and the residents at Eden have influenced

the Go Vegan World campaign are some of those
last ads that I used, like “Vegetarianism

Is Not Enough”—for all the animals used
for clothing, in research, for animals used

for eggs, for the mammals used in the dairy
industry.

When anybody comes to Eden, and they talk
about cutting down on animal use and eating

less meat is nearly always the one they come
up with, I introduce them to, say to one of

the enclosures here where we have Emily, George,
and Charlotte, and I ask them, you know,

“If you want to eat less, can you tell me
which of them you’ll spare and which of

them you’ll kill?”

And the message gets home very quickly that
eating less meat is no use to the one who

is killed

This incredibly simple yet profoundly powerful
approach of focusing on the animal’s individuality

and personhood is the key to Go Vegan World’s
effectiveness, especially within the heart

of Ireland’s agricultural areas. I asked
Sandra whether the cultural location of the

ads affected their composition, if she’d
had any difficulty securing space, and what

the public reception has been so far:

It hasn't affected how I’ve constructed
the ads at all, because the ads tell the truth

about animal use, and what the animals need
from us, so they stay the same regardless

of where I show the ads. The International
campaign is running in the center of some

of the largest cities in the world: London,
Birmingham, Glasgow; the 3 largest cities

in the United Kingdom. How they’re received
is very different though.

In the U.K. people have been very, very receptive.
So in a 2-week period following the largest

campaign that we’ve run in Birmingham, 36,000
people have expressed interest in downloading

the vegan guide. The public are not insulted
by what you're telling them—they're anxious

to know. And the words that rang in my ears
all the time in the U.K. were: “I never

knew this.”

The Birmingham Mail actually ran a poll asking
people about the effect that the campaign

had on them. I think it was 63% of people
said they would go vegan having seen the campaign.

And another 10% said they would consider
going vegan.

Also the advertising world itself has taken
an interest in the campaign. The campaign

won an award for the bathroom advertising.
 Not the most attractive of advertising but

because it’s such a dwell time it’s really
effective, so…  In that campaign I tried

to dispel the myth of humane use, particularly
in the egg and dairy industry, and the notion

that animal foods are necessary for human
health.

Marketing Week ran something on us last month
on the subject of disruptive advertising.

So in the same paragraph as Sony, and Facebook
and The Financial Times, they included Go

Vegan World advertising.

The whole campaign is designed to get people
to got to the website so that they get accurate

information about animal use; and a clear
and consistent call to stop using other animals

completely and now; and to make it easy for
them to do that.  And one of the most effective

tools of the campaign is the Vegan Guide.

So people can download that either by seeing
the ads on the street, or through social media

or through the online advertising campaign
that I run that targets non-vegans.  Or they

can use the Q-Code that’s on some of the
ads that are at eye level on the street.  Or

they can use a free text number.

In Ireland people were a lot more defensive.
And of course, in agricultural areas, this

is very entrenched in the Irish psyche: the
relationship with the land and the belief

that other animals are our property, the belief
that it actually forms some kind of economic

security in the country, which it actually
doesn't. People felt very threatened, they

felt that I was threatening their way of earning
a living and their very lifestyles.

In terms of securing ad space, there was a
lot more difficulty in Ireland than it has

been outside Ireland, so the campaign almost
didn't happen in Ireland, at all. I’ve also

had difficulty in the UK. I’ve had difficulty
on television but I haven't had difficulty

with the outdoor advertising.

It’s the first time a vegan ad has ever
made it to television. It’s been viewed

by a lot of people; we’ve seen an increase
in the number of Vegan Guide downloads.  And

very interestingly, there have been no complaints.
 There have been complaints in the UK about

the street ads, but there have been no complaints
about the television ad.

As Sandra said, animal agriculture is deeply
rooted within Ireland’s culture, economy,

and national identity. This was one of the
most challenging aspects for me as an outsider

attempting to speak about veganism in Ireland.  It
was my research for that speech led me to

Sandra’s work in the first place. I reached
out to her for insight and expertise, and

had the distinct honor of sharing the stories
of Eden residents Joy and Alice in my speech

in Dublin. Months later, while walking the
grounds of Eden, Sandra told me a story that

gave me goosebumps, and hope for change.

One of the most remarkable examples was the
farmer who gave us two of the pigs who are

here, Emily and Charlotte. He gave us Grace
as well and Grace died very young.

I was just going to bed one night, at about
10:00 or half-10:00 and there was a knock

on the door and it was the farmer who had
given us the pigs.  And he came back to ask

me how we ever started to do this to other
animals, and he was very interested.  And

he came again a few weeks ago, and he said,
the more he talks to us and the more he sees

what we do here the more convinced he is that
farming is wrong and veganism is right.

Of course, when you see the inside of farms,
and when you see the condition of the bodies

that I rescue and what they go through and
the deaths they have, of course it’s very

easy to blame farmers.  And when we think
about the dreadful things they do in the dairy

industry and the egg industry, and the mutilations
and everything, of course it’s easy to look

at them and say they’re heartless.

But they’re doing what their fathers did.
They’re doing what this country tells them

to do, what it encourages them to do, what
it pays them to do. They’re doing what we

pay them to do every time we go into a shop
and make a non-vegan purchase. They’re doing

what the schools are teaching them to do,
but they’re not the only problem. And it’s

very heartening when farmers come to Eden
and are open to what we’re doing here. Just

open enough to listen. That there might be
an alternative way.

So one of the strengths of Go Vegan World,
is that we’ve tried—and to a certain extent

we’ve succeeded in—building positive relationships
with farmers so that they see plant-based

agriculture as an alternative to their current
life and that they understand that veganism

is not the enemy of farmers. We always need
farmers and veganism is very much the friend

of farmers.

The residents of Eden have not only changed
the hearts of farmers and launched an international

ad campaign, but they were also the impetus
for Sandra’s own vegan conversion.

All my work is inspired and informed by
the animals at Eden. I learned about sentience

from them, just by observing them. They made
me question. I started to think about it.

I fell into the humane myth thing for a few
months. I was vegetarian myself, but I was

still cooking meat for other people, and we
were still using eggs and dairy products.

And then one night some goats arrived in our
yard, and they belonged to one of the dairies

close by us, so I visited that dairy when
we gave the goats back, and I walked out vegan.

And I spent the next week researching animal
rights, and I found the film “Earthlings”

and when I watched “Earthlings” I threw
out every animal product in the house. I went

vegan overnight. You know, the food wasn't
great for the first fortnight. I didn't know

what I was doing. I was worried about my health,
because I have severe, very severe osteoporosis.

And I have to say that it was easy. It was
easy, and I’ve never looked back, and it

completely changed my life.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed hearing from
Sandra and, through her, the many survivors

who have lived and died at Eden. Though she
will always defer to them, and rightly so,

I am constantly amazed by not only the astounding
scope of Sandra’s activism, but also her

dedication to preserving the integrity their
message.

If you want to help support this vital work,
Eden is in need of volunteers, and currently

has some job vacancies as well. Please see
the blog post linked in the description for

how to apply. You can also share the Go Vegan
World campaign to further the reach of their

stories.

My deepest thanks to Sandra for sparing time
from her certainly packed schedule to be on

the channel. Give this video a like and be
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Now go live vegan, world, and I’ll see you
soon.